While a fume extractor is a great thing to have around, especially when soldering. Commercial devices can cost as much as $58 plus you gotta wait for it. My solution a DIY fume extractor. The operating principle is very basic, pull the air through a carbon filter. With the use of a spare computer fan, a wall power supply, duct tape, and an $8.99 box of “cut to size” carbon filter from a hardware store, I was defuming in no time. Even the cardboard from the filter packaging box is reused, no need to waste. The pictorial is pretty self explamatory, just make sure the fan is blowing out of the back and the filter is not catching on the blades. The box of BestAir filter contains more then enough filter material. I would guess that its a 2 by 4 foot sheet! I ended up using only 15% of the total material.

Evaluation: After using this beast for about 3 hours I could tell that it was working because I didn’t get a headache. The solder fumes and flying particles were drawn to the filter and were visually apparent on the surface. At also seems that alot of commercial filters only use one layer of filter material. This filter uses about 6. Overkill maybe, but still more then enough air is being drawn through.